On Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Theories

Dewar, Neil; Weatherall, James Owen (2018): On Gravitational Energy in Newtonian Theories. In: Foundations of Physics, Vol. 48, No. 5: pp. 558-578

Abstract

There are well-known problems associated with the idea of (local) gravitational energy in general relativity. We offer a new perspective on those problems by comparison with Newtonian gravitation, and particularly geometrized Newtonian gravitation (i.e., Newton-Cartan theory). We show that there is a natural candidate for the energy density of a Newtonian gravitational field. But we observe that this quantity is gauge dependent, and that it cannot be defined in the geometrized (gauge-free) theory without introducing further structure. We then address a potential response by showing that there is an analogue to the Weyl tensor in geometrized Newtonian gravitation.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Philosophy, Philosophy of Science and Religious Science > Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP)
• ISSN: 0015-9018
• Language: English